Romania's Halep wins National Bank Open

TORONTO — Simona Halep has won the National Bank Open for a third time.

The Romanian beat Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 on Sunday in the WTA event's final.

Halep also won the title in 2016 and 2018 when it was called the Rogers Cup.

It's the 24th title of Halep's career and first since switching to Patrick Mouratoglou as her coach.

The 26-year-old Haddad Maia has never won a tennis tournament at this level before but has rocketed up the WTA Tour's standings this year.

She upset three seeded players at the National Bank Open: 13th-seeded Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, and 14th-seeded Karolina Pliskova in succession.

A year ago, Haddad Maia was ranked 183rd in the world, but entered this week's tournament No. 24 and will crack the top-20 next week.

A visibly frustrated Halep started yelling at herself after she fell behind to Haddad Maia 3-0 in the opening set.

Some Brazilian fans — many of them in yellow national soccer kit — started chanting "Bee-ah! Bee-ah!" to cheer on Haddad-Maia but they were soon drowned out by Romanian fans' calls of "See-moh-nah! See-moh-nah!"

The chanting seemed to rouse Halep. A deep forehand return on set point was just out of the reach of Haddad Maia's extended racket sealed six consecutive games for Halep as she came back to take the first set.

Haddad Maia seemed to shake off that stunning comeback by Halep to start the second set. She quickly won the first two games, then fended off Halep on two more for a 4-0 lead.

Although Halep won a game back to slow Haddad Maia slightly and make it 4-1, the younger Brazilian immediately reclaimed that momentum to make it 5-1.

Halep claimed another game before Haddad Maia could serve for the second set. Haddad Maia